| Adaptation Options |
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No matter how aggressively heat-trapping emissions are reduced, some amount of climate change and resulting impacts will continue. Consequently, there is a need for adaptation. Adaptation can include a wide range of activities. Examples include a farmer switching to growing a different crop variety better suited to warmer or drier conditions; a company relocating key business centers away from coastal areas vulnerable to sea-level rise and hurricanes; and a community altering its zoning and building codes to place fewer structures in harm’s way and making buildings less vulnerable to damage from floods, fires, and other extreme events. However, it is clear that there are limits to how much adaptation can achieve. Humans have adapted to changing conditions in the past, but in the future, adaptations will be particularly challenging because society won’t be adapting to a new steady state but rather to a moving target. Climate will be continually changing, moving at a relatively rapid rate, outside the range to which society has adapted. The precise amounts and timing of these changes will not be known with certainty. In an increasingly interdependent world, U.S. vulnerability to climate change is linked to the fates of other nations. For example, conflicts or mass migrations of people resulting from food scarcity and other resource limits, health, or environmental stresses in other parts of the world could threaten national security. It is thus difficult to fully evaluate the impacts of climate change on the United States without considering the consequences of climate change elsewhere. Examples of the broad range of adaptation options that are currently being pursued in various regions and sectors to deal with climate change and/or other environmental issues are illustrated in the U.S. Global Change Research Program’s (USGCRP) 2009 report Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States .A 2008 report from the USGCRP / Climate Change Science Program (CCSP) focuses on adaptation options for federally managed ecosystems: Preliminary Review of Adaptation Options for Climate-Sensitive Ecosystems and Resources. Other reports from the USGCRP include discussion of adaptation options related to transportation, human health and welfare, energy supply and demand, and sea level rise. The full set of these reports is available here. |
